Tuesday, April 19, 2016

How was your week? Mine has been full of craziness but it's ok because I am about to go to the temple and feel the peace and happiness found inside :) There's not much to write this week, but there are a lot of pictures with captions! :)

The work is moving along pretty. Sister Dolben and I had a nice realization this past week. Recently, all of our investigators have either stopped answering their phones or are too busy to meet with us. We were feeling a little down, and our district leader asked us if we knew why we were called to serve in Yuen Long. We know we are here for a reason, but we didn't know what that reason was. After a lot of heartfelt prayer and discussion, we determined the Lord wants us to focus on our members and less actives. It fits perfectly with President Uchtdorf's talk about rescuing the lost sheep. These less actives are lost and we are determined to go find them and bring them home. We will still work with our investigators, but we are also going to start focusing more on less actives. I feel really good about this and we know this is why the Lord called us to Yuen Long at this time.

Well, as of last Thursday, I have been on my mission for 6 months! That's insane! I can't believe I am already 1/3 of the way done with my mission! I swear I've only been on my mission for 6 weeks lol! These past 6 months have honestly been the happiest 6 months of my life. I am so glad I made the decision to serve a mission! It has been the best decision of my life so far. So for any of you considering serving a mission, do it! I promise you there are so many miracles and blessings in store that you can't even imagine right now. I know that's what happened to me. I didn't know I could grow and learn so much in such a short period of time. I am excited to see what the next year brings!

I hope all of you have an awesome week! I love each and every one of you!

Scripture of the Week: 2 Nephi 4:34-35 Trust in the Lord, not in yourself. Ask Him for anything, and He will answer you.

Quote of the Week: You can have what you want, or you can have something better (Elder Jeffery R. Holland)

Sister Maggie Shiffert

These are all the people in the New Territories zone!

All the people from our MTC group who hit their 6 month mark! (And Elder Peterson's companion Elder Oquist lol)

​I found out you can take brownie batter and microwave it in a little bowl for a minute and you have a perfect brownie! This is how missionaries improvise when you don't have an oven haha! (Good tip for college that I probably shouldn't have known lol!) Happy 6 months!

​We got locked out of our apartment. Again. Yay for Locked Out of Your Apartment Part 4! This time we had the key, but the lock to the gate iis messed up so we couldn't get in. ​

​I ate chicken feet for the first time! They were delicious! Just kidding, they were gross. They don't have any meat on them so it's like eating only the skin part of a chicken leg. It wasn't awful, but I wouldn't do it again if I had a choice. ​

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

I hope all of you had a great week! I know I did! This past weekend was amazing because we finally had the chance to watch general conference! I love general conference so much!!! ​And I think as a missionary, I have come to love it even more! How awesome is it that twice a year we get to hear from our current prophet and apostles and learn how we can be better disciples of Christ? All of the talks were so good! No, I luckily didn't have to watch it in Cantonese haha! All of the missionaries were in a separate room where we could watch it in English. I wish I had enough time to talk about each talk that was given, but these were some of my favorite quotes and thoughts on some of them.

President Henry B. Eyring - "If you realize your faith is dying, you are blessed. Most people don't realize it's withering." I never thought of realizing my faith is dying as a blessing, but it's so true. It's a blessing to be able to realize it sooner rather than later so you can build it back up before it's too late. So if you feel your faith diminishing, don't fear. Now that you've acknowledged it, the Lord can help you build it back up stronger and better than ever.

Elder Steven E. Snow- "Be humble before you have to walk through the valley of humility."

Sister Cheryl A. Esplin - "Throw away the mirror and look out eh window." We can most definitely serve others more. Especially with everything that's going on in the world (I'm not actually sure what's going on, but there was a lot about refugees), we can always go the extra mile and serve one another. As a missionary, I serve many people everyday, but I know that I could still do more. Love and service are the way to softened hearts and as you serve, other people can feel your love for them. .

Bonnie L. Oscarson - "Get the gospel out of your head and into your heart."

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf - "It doesn't matter hope we become lost. Because He loves you, He will find you." I love the parable of the lost sheep because it just goes to show how much Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us. As he said in his talk "God sees us as we truly are - worthy of rescue"

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk was my favorite. He just bears testimony with so much power and conviction, and his talk was nothing short of that. I loved his topic on improving. For me, I am constantly trying to improve my teaching skills, my Cantonese, my Christ-like attributes, etc. I would be lying if I said there aren't some times where I feel like I'm stuck. Not really getting getting worse, but not getting better either. But I low that the Lord is with me. As Elder Holland said, "God will never desert us. Never has. Never will." I know He is always with me trying to help me improve so that I can be the missionary He knows I can become. God is always by our sides, in good times and in bad. I loved how he said that "His help will be with us especially when we struggle...Strive with patience and perseverance." I am definitely going to have to work on that patience part, but I know the Lord will help me improve. I know He can help all of us improve! Just rely on Him.

I love all of you so much! I may be doing some good things here, but I know all of you are being awesome and doing even more amazing things over there! I hope you can take what you learned in general conference and really apply it in your lives. I personally know the Lord gave me a laundry list of things I can do to become a better missionary and disciple of Christ. Never forget the rely on the Savior. I know He will help you both in good times and in rocky times. Go out and serve others! I can think of no better way to feel the Lord's love. I know He has blessed me in more ways than I can count because of my service, and I can promise He will do the same for you :) Have a great week everyone!

Scripture of the Week: John 14:27 Even in a world full of challenges, the Savior promises we can always have peace if we rely on Him.

Quote of the Week: Our ability to have peace in the midst of trials depends on our ability to think of Christ (W. Christopher Waddell)

Monday, April 4, 2016

This week has been pretty busy. We did 24-hour exchanges and I stayed in Yuen Long again. My new companion was Sister Chi and she was awesome. She's so sweet and an amazing missionary. We had a meeting with our bishop to discuss our investigators and less actives and different ways we can find new investigators. I was stressing out because usually Sister Redd or Sister Dolben would take over, but this time it was all on me because Sister Chi doesn't know any of the people in Yuen Long. My lanugage is still far from fluent, but it went okay though. Our bishop is amazing! He was helping us think of ways to find new investigators and giving us some ideas as to where we could go and what time and different approaches we could make. He has been really trying hard these past couple months to help us out, and I makes me happy because I feel like part of the ward. I have a strong feeling though that this is foreshadowing and the Lord's way of telling me I'm going to train next transfer and that's terrifying. I know the Lord doesn't call the qualified but qualifies the called, but it's still scary to think about because I still have no idea what I'm doing haha!

Sister Dolben and I are growing closer and our unity just keeps getting better. She is an awesome step-trainer even though she thinks she's not really doing anything. She makes up for all of my weaknesses and makes me a better missionary. We have been working so hard this week trying to get new investigators and working with the ones we have. Our new investigator Gei Siu Je came to church yesterday and she brought her son! They were only there for testimony meeting because they got there late, but I still think she enjoyed it. She even asked to stay for a baptism the other ward was having! We will definitely have to talk things a little slower with her so she doesn't feel pressured, but she's awesome :)

We haven't been in contact with Jasmine in over a week and that's really concerning us. We taught her two Wednesdays ago and she was fine and happy to see us, but now, nothing. We knows she's really busy and stressed because her DSC (a big test similar to the SAT I think) is coming up, but for her to not answer her phone or text us is really strange. She's not the kind of person to just drop off the face of the earth with no explanination. We have fasted and prayed for her so we have faith that this week she is going to answer us and she'll explain everything and it's all going to be ok. If the Lord wanted us to get in touch with her by now, it would have happened. So we are just patiently waiting and hoping she's ok. We are likely going to have to push her baptism date back to sometime in May, but that's ok. I would rather push it back to November and her have a solid testimony of coming to church than baptizing her now and having her less active within a year.

We had another miracle at church though! We were just sitting in Relief Society and all of a sudden Lam Ji Muih just walks in the dorr and sits down. Her whole family is inactive and we have been working with her for a while too. She and her husband always tell us they will come to church, but then they never do. But Lam JM came all on her own! She stayed for all the meetings and even bore her testimony in sacrament meeting! What?! All of these less actives keep surprising me out of nowhere! First Jessie, then Wan JM, and now Lam JM! It's crazy! We also saw Wan JM at church yesterday. She even brought her daughter Crystal. I really miss teaching her so much, but it's good to see she's coming back to church and building her testimony back up. Hopefully we can get Lam JM to do the same so she can be an example to her family.

I hope all of you had a great week and the chance to see general conference! We get to watch it this weekend so I am super excited! You can definitely look forward to some of my thoughts from our modern day prophet and apostles! have a great week everyone! I love you all!

Scripture of the Week: Ether 12:27 The Lord will make our weak things stronger if we humble ourselves and rely on Him.

Quote of the Week: The Savior brought hope ot the hopeless and strength to the weak (Thomas S. Monson)

Sister Maggie Shiffert

24 hour exchanges with Sister Chi!

Lunch with all of the sisters in our zone before 24 hour exhanges

We figured out how to put together a new water filter for our apartment!